Madness
by Vaetra
Summary: Oneshot. Mrs Lovett wonders if she'll ever get over Mr Todd.


Warming her hands against the sides of her blue and white painted teacup, Mrs Lovett stared down into the dark liquid, watchin

_Ridiculous, random ramblings. (How's __**that**__for alliteration?) This is pretty much what it says- Mrs Lovett wondering if she'll ever get over Mr Todd. It takes a while to get to the point, and meanders all over the place before then, but I couldn't very well describe it as "Mrs Lovett thinking about whatever comes to her mind" could I? Well actually…_

Warming her hands against the sides of her blue and white painted teacup, Mrs Lovett stared down into the dark liquid, watching her reflection- rippling and indistinct on the glassy surface. The shimmering, fractured image captured only her most basic features, making a caricature of herself reflected in the amber tea. Her face was small and ice-pale, the angles sharp, and her sunken, dark eyes looked too big for it, like a doll's. Twisting one of her dark, matted curls, Mrs Lovett smiled a little at that. What a frightening doll she would make- her hair sticking out in all directions like the legs of a dead spider, her eyes hollow, and her collarbones unnaturally prominent.

Times were hard, the baker mused, on both body and mind. She didn't need someone to tell her she was looking less than her best. She had long stopped flinching at her reflection in the mirror- the bruises under eyes, her torn, flour-stained dress, and her tangled, greying hair didn't bother her any more. But Mrs Lovett still refused to examine the possibility that perhaps these hard times were starting to wear on her mind as well. She didn't like to think that she might be going mad, though the evidence was becoming as hard to ignore as the blood on her hands- (which now seemed such a constant force in her life that she was beginning to wonder if she sweated it at night.)

Mrs Lovett knew it wasn't normal to cheerfully cleave human flesh from bone, nor to smilingly promote cannibalism every weekday. She had started to wonder if there was something wrong with her when the sound of the bodies hitting the stone floor no longer turned her stomach, and when she no longer had to look away from all those frozen, dead faces. She felt so little for these men she ripped apart, that she began to wonder if someone had pulled out her own heart when she wasn't looking. She felt hollow; there was nothing left to make her feel anymore, except, of course, the delightfully dangerous, (and probably equally mad) Sweeney Todd.

An icy forced smile from that man could melt her heart, while the human meat made as it was peeled off the bones was hardly worth batting an eyelid at. _Perhaps that's what obsession does to you, _Mrs Lovett mused as she idly stirred her tea, causing her reflection to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces of light, _it numbs you to all pain but your own._ Her love for the demon barber was probably more evidence of her loosening grip on sanity. She had been yearning for him for more than fifteen years now, without a scrap of returned affection to fuel her desire. And yet with each passing day of indifference, her obsession only grew.

Occasionally Mrs Lovett would wonder vaguely when, if ever, it would end. Would she ever come down to earth and stop pining after a man who she knew would never love her back? She felt traitorous even for thinking of it, but she couldn't help but wonder if there would ever come a day when she would finally get over Mr Todd. It had been so long now that she could hardly remember what life was like without his black eyes always glittering in the forefront of her mind. The baker simply couldn't imagine forgetting someone like Sweeney Todd. How would she even go about it?

Perhaps it would happen suddenly- she would wake up one morning to find that her heart (or the space where it ought to be) no longer ached with longing, and all thoughts of the man had been purged from her mind. Or perhaps he would leave her slowly, excruciatingly, like poison being drawn from a wound. Maybe the pain would simply ebb bit by bit until only the faintest of scars remained- a slight discolouration on her soul where the demon barber had left his mark.

But for all her musings, Mrs Lovett knew that she would never be able to forget her Mr Todd. He was so much a part of her now that if he were gone, she thought there would be nothing left to hold her together, and she'd float apart like smoke on the wind. She sighed, staring again into her now almost empty teacup. Her reflection smiled sadly back at her. _Oh, Mr Todd, I just don't think I'll ever get over you…_

After another minute of silence, the door swung open. She looked up, and was unsurprised to see Sweeney Todd standing before her, obviously in his customary black mood. He held out a blood-streaked white shirt at arm's-length, and he didn't look at her as he said brusquely, "This needs washing, Mrs Lovett."

"Of course, love." The baker slugged back the rest of her tea and crossed the room to take the proffered garment. She tutted when she saw the countless rubies spattered across the cloth. "You really ought to be more careful, Mr T. Surely all this isn't necessary."

He shot her a glance but said nothing.

She pressed on, hoping for an excuse to bask in his sullen presence for just a little longer. "Do you want some tea, love? I still got half a pot left…"

"No… thank you, Mrs Lovett." Then he turned and left without another word, but Mrs Lovett was still smiling as his heavy footsteps receded upstairs. She held the bloodstained shirt to her chest like something precious.

_No,_ she thought again, _I just don't think I'll ever…_


End file.
